Various establishments seek to attract patrons by offering something of value to those prospective patrons who enter the establishment or who purchase particular products. Such offers may be in the nature of a promised free gift to each patron, to be awarded when the patron enters the establishment. In these games, every person entering the establishment, or every person entering the establishment and meeting certain predetermined qualifications, may receive the same gift. Likewise, incentive schemes to induce purchase of particular products or services ordinarily award the same gift to each purchaser.
Other similar schemes utilize an element of random chance. For example, in a so called "match and win" promotion, tokens bearing differing indicia, such as different pictures or combinations of alphanumeric characters may be distributed to prospective patrons. Different prizes are associated with some or all of the different indicia, and the prize associated with each indicia is posted or otherwise made known within the establishment. Thus, the prospective patron must enter the establishment to determine what, if any, prize he has won.
Often, the various indicia include one or more rare indicia applied to only a few of the tokens and associated with prizes of significant value and other common indicia are applied to the remaining tokens and associated with prizes of minimal value or with no prize at all. As only a few patrons will win prizes of significant value, the total value of prizes distributed in the scheme will not pose a prohibitive cost to the sponsor of the scheme. Nonetheless, the possibility, albeit remote, of winning a prize of significant value provides a powerful incentive to prospective patrons.
Although games of this nature can be a useful marketing tool, they suffer from significant drawbacks. In this regard, it is expensive to manufacture and distribute the tokens. Additionally, security measures must be employed to prevent persons involved in distributing the tokens from separating out those tokens bearing the rare indicia associated with valuable prizes and diverting those tokens to their own use. The security measures add to the cost of conducting the game. Moreover, since the game is perceived as being completed after the patron has determined what prize he or she has won, these games provide minimal entertainment to the patron. The game thus has no value whatsoever in inducing the customer to remain in the establishment. Games of this nature normally are not integrated with any mechanism for compiling a list of patrons entering the establishment for use in future promotional efforts.
Other promotional schemes have been conducted using identical tokens, such as identical coupons printed in newspaper advertisements and coupons incorporated as part of packages for goods. Ordinarily, all of the tokens or coupons used in such a scheme are identical and entitle the person holding the coupon to the same value. For example, coupons can be printed in a newspaper offering a discount on a specific item of merchandise in a store. Also, packaged goods often carry coupons which either entitle the customer to a discount on subsequent purchases of the goods or which can be redeemed for unrelated merchandise.
Many of these promotions involve redemption by mail. In such promotions, the coupon or token may be imprinted with a machine readable code or "UPC" code used to identify the goods for inventory and sale purposes. Promotions of this nature generally do not provide any element of randomness. Thus, each consumer may acquire the same item of relatively small value by presenting or redeeming the coupon or token. There is no chance for the consumer to acquire a highly valuable prize and therefore, the promotions usually do not generate much enthusiasm.
A gaming method which has greatly improved upon promotional games is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,007,641 to Seidman. The promotional game disclosed in the '641 patent provides for automatically awarding prizes upon presentation of tokens which bear machine readable codes. The tokens may be identical to one another. Thus, the tokens may all bear an identical common code. The prizes may be awarded at random to patrons who present an appropriate token bearing such common code. According to the preferred gaming methods disclosed in the '641 patent, prizes may be awarded immediately after presentation and evaluation of the tokens. In one embodiment, the tokens may be product identification code symbols on packages of goods such as film, beer, etc.
The invention disclosed in the '641 patent offers significant improvements over prior art promotional games, and methods of participating in same. Since the prizes are randomly awarded to participating patrons, there are no high-value or low-value tokens, and no need for security measures to safeguard high-value tokens. In the preferred methods of the '641 patent, the gaming method includes the steps of automatically reading codes on tokens presented by patrons at a redemption location within an establishment. The codes read from each of the tokens presented are then automatically compared with one or more predetermined qualifying codes. If a match between any of the presented codes and the predetermined qualifying codes is obtained, the randomization generator is actuated so that prizes will be awarded to at least some of the patrons who presented the tokens bearing a code which matched the predetermined qualifying code.
In one embodiment of the game disclosed in the '641 patent, a patron may need to present a token which includes a code which matches the actuating code, and then must present additional information before the prize awarding randomization generator will be actuated. The additional information typically is specific information regarding the patron, such as the patron's name, address or other specific information regarding the patron.
Although the preferred methods disclosed in the '641 patent provide highly useful and successful games, further improvements are still desirable. In particular, it would be desirable to provide improved games within the broad concept of the '641 patent which provide patrons with even greater motivation to participate in promotional games so that additional revenue will be generated through increased sales or services.